GEN31 ETHICS OF BUDDHA  In admiring the exacting ideals taught by Buddhism, we are forced to a conclusion similar to that arrived at when considering those of Confucius. Buddha was a price garbed as a mendicant friar who preached a gospel of love and charity for all creatures, including animals. The chief planks in his semi-religious ascetic platform are: total resignation and self-effacement in the presence of care, suffering and death—ills which rule the entire domain of life. The ideal life contemplated by Buddha is that of one who has absolutely separated himself from the world.  This separation is to be not only from the vices of life and its debasing luxuries but also from all amusement and exercise, from business and the holding of property, and from unnecessary conversation. In short, almost the whole of existence is evil to Buddha; throbbing life, with its passions and pleasures, its desires and deeds, all come under his scathing ban. His aim was a state of nostalgic “otherworldliness” expressed in the one word Nirvana. The only relief he had to offer to the despair and delusion often attending life, was the sympathy and compassion we should exercise towards others. See Dr. C. Gore: “Philosophy of the Good Life”. Everyman’s Library (1935).  However much men may venerate Buddha himself, his doctrine appears to be that the sole motive for self-improveement is the selfish otive of obtaining a better future for oneself. The only really satisfying motive appears to be that of getting rid of individual life by thye total extinction of desire – a thought that must remain alien to the noblest minds. It is certainly alien to Jewish thought. With its stress on the beauty of tranquility and the virtue of kindness, Judaism is in full agreement. On its insistence, however, that personal life is an evil – with that Judaism must part company. This view vitiates Buddhism, as far as the Jew is concerned. “And He saw that it was good” [this verse] – this is the Kol Ya’akov, “the voice of Israel”.  Life, and all it holds, is potential of joy and goodness. This is the conviction of Jewish ethics, springing from a faith which bids its adherents to “serve the Lord with joy and to come before Him with gladness.” Psalm 100:2. LEHRMAN 23-24